


Bittersweet and Strange

by Heart_Seoul_Soshi



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Drabble, F/F, Ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 08:10:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12907806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heart_Seoul_Soshi/pseuds/Heart_Seoul_Soshi
Summary: With lady of the court duties on the horizon, Mal learns to waltz from Evie, and they share one final rehearsal to the tune of an Auradon classic.





	Bittersweet and Strange

**Author's Note:**

> a request from @awesomesquirrelstuff on tumblr

“How exactly do you know how to waltz?” Mal asked skeptically, being tugged along by the hand.  
  
“I’ve been classically trained to catch a prince, remember?” Evie answered, the one doing the tugging.  
  
Only for a few steps more, then the pair came to a stop. Mal took a look around.  
  
“And  _how_ exactly did you get the former king and queen to let us use their iconic ballroom?” she raised a quizzical eyebrow.  
  
Evie rolled her eyes and laughed.  
  
“M, I just told you. Charming royalty, it’s what I do.”  
  
Their voices echoed slightly around the cavernous room, bouncing off the marbled walls and polished floors.  
  
“So when did you say this dignitaries’ ball was?” now Evie was the one coming at her best friend with the questions.  
  
“In three days. And as king and lady of the court, Ben and I have the first dance,” Mal sighed, crossing her arms and staring down at her reflection in the floor.  
  
“Okay, I will admit that three days is not at all promising, but…we can still do this. You and me.”  
  
“E, I appreciate the effort, but let’s face it, there’s no way I’m learning to waltz in three days.”  
  
“At this point the goal is less about getting you waltzing and more about keeping you from bowling over a royal on the dancefloor.”  
  
“Thanks,” Mal deadpanned.  
  
Despite the grimness of time constraints, a three day weekend was ahead of them, leaving Mal and Evie school-free and able to devote their time to Belle and Beast’s ballroom. Evie really did know her stuff, that was evident right away, whereas Mal spent her Day One and Day Two missing steps, missing beats, tripping over her own feet, tripping over Evie’s.  
  
“M, I know you’re not a dancer, but I know you’re not _clumsy_ either,” Evie chided at some point during the second day, noting the unusual ungracefulness of Mal’s missteps.  
  
“I’m just—” Mal cut herself off before the word “nervous” could leave her lips.  
  
For what did she have to be nervous about? The ball was just a day away and she was woefully unprepared, yes, but still, it was a day away. A bridge to be crossed at a later date. Here and now, there were no dignitaries and judging eyes, it was just her and Evie, the two of them alone. So really, what did she have to be nervous about?  
  
Evie’s eyes narrowed curiously at Mal’s personal interruption, and took it as a sign of being flustered and overwhelmed.  
  
“Let’s take a break for a little bit,” she suggested.  
  
“No,” Mal denied right away. “There’s no time for that, just…come on, I’ll get it.”  
  
“Mal—”  
  
“Evie, please.”    
  
Evie, unfortunately, recognized that hint of sternness in her tone, and knew it was Mal digging her heels in.  
  
“…Okay, we’ll go through it again,” she grudgingly agreed, playing the role of Ben and stepping forward to wrap her arm around Mal’s waist.  
  
Truthfully, Evie had been against the whole idea.  
  
She abhorred all things lady of the court and the way they made Mal change, mold herself to these shapes that simply didn’t fit, drive her out of fear of judgement and humiliation. The Mal she used to know feared nothing, especially not judgement and humiliation…well, from everyone but her mother, that is.  
  
Day Three saw improvement, but Evie couldn’t bring herself to be pleased with it. It was that new drive of Mal’s, it forced her onward like the crack of a whip, cold and harsh and nothing like the passionate fire the old Mal’s drive was always made of.  
  
By the end, time was up, and Mal was as ready as she was ever going to get the chance to be.  
  
But the next day, with the dignitaries’ ball just barely an hour away, Evie was heeding Mal’s text to meet her at the castle for one final practice.  
  
“M, you’re about to leave at any minute,” was how Evie greeted her later, striding into the ballroom and carrying along her speaker.  
  
There was Mal, all dressed up and dolled up with too-tight hair and a dress of the royal blue and yellow.  _“Should have been purple”_  was Evie’s bitterly sequestered thought.  
  
“Think of it as a dress rehearsal,” Mal shrugged as Evie crouched down and set her speaker on the floor.   
  
They hadn’t danced to music when they practiced, focusing instead on getting Mal to just perfect the steps so she could move to any rhythm she needed. Evie wasn’t dressed for a “dress rehearsal”, only in one of her stylish Evie fashions but nothing close to formal, yet it hardly mattered. Just one quick dance, and they were done. Evie turned her speaker on, hit play. Mal recognized the opening chords in a second flat.  
  
“…E, seriously?” she frowned, feeling like this was somehow a mockery of the situation.  
  
Evie ignored her mild disapproval, merely sidestepping to take her spot in front of Mal.  
  
“We’re in the perfect place for it,” she said simply. “No other song is going to do this room justice.”  
  
Mal didn’t have time to argue as the instrumentals played on, and took the hand Evie had offered out to her, ready for one last dance.  
  
_“Tale as old as time…true as it can be.”  
  
“Barely even friends, then somebody bends, unexpectedly.”_  
  
Their eyes straight ahead, locked on the furthermost stately columns of the ballroom, the pair walked slowly out to the center of the floor, each step firm and sure.  
_  
“Just a little change…small to say the least.”_  
  
Exactly as they’d rehearsed, Mal and Evie let their hands daintily fall to their sides and turned to face each other.  
  
_“Both a little scared, neither one prepared…Beauty and the Beast.”_  
  
Still playing the role of Ben, Evie bowed first, bending at the waist and keeping her head ducked down. Mal watched the hair fall into her face—was startled by how much the wavy blue resembled a soft, flowing river just then—but eventually remembered to curtsy back, holding her dress out and dropping low to the floor. She stood back up, and Evie’s arm was curling around her waist. And Evie’s brilliant eyes were looking deep into hers.  
  
Mal’s hands found their place as the piano and beautiful strings continued to sing for them, one hand in Evie’s, the other resting lightly on her shoulder. Mal remembered this, she had the steps. One two, three four, five six.  
  
And then they were dancing.  
  
_“Ever just the same…ever a surprise…”  
  
“Ever as before, ever just as sure…as the sun will rise.”_  
  
Around and around they circled, Mal never even needing to look at her feet, because the  _warm_ brown of Evie’s eyes was all she could see. The song was building, and Evie couldn’t tell if she had squeezed Mal’s hand, or if Mal had squeezed hers. They glided across that dancefloor like skaters on ice, figures of grace and serenity. Evie knew Mal wasn’t a dancer. She knew she wasn’t clumsy. But she never knew Mal could be… _this_.  
_  
“Tale as old as time…tune as old as song…”  
_  
Evie’s hand spun Mal out in a twirl, her dress like the petals of a flower in a breeze. A second twirl, partly to stick to what they’d rehearsed, partly to give herself another glimpse at Mal’s enchanting elegance. To the outside eye, it was far from perfect, but to Evie…they waltzed like they too were a love straight out of a fairytale.  
  
_“Bittersweet and strange, finding you can change, learning you were wrong.”_  
  
They seemed to fall right into step again to Evie’s practically bespelled perception, circling across the dancefloor. How Mal looked to be every bit a lady of the court in that moment, her jade green gaze wide, endless, and completely drawn to Evie.  
  
Evie had been trained to charm royalty.  
  
She didn’t realize that almost-royalty could charm her just as easily.  
  
_“Certain as the sun…rising in the east, tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme…Beauty and the Beast.”_  
  
One two, three four, five six. They slowed to a stop as their waltz came to its end, but neither was in any hurry to go anywhere. Evie still held Mal in her arms, gently pulled her in even closer, as a matter of fact. And Mal let herself draw near; her heartbeat feeling caught in a strange combination of slowing to a calm, serene beat and quickening in pace as she watched Evie’s lips part the tiniest bit.  
  
_“Tale as old as time…”_  
  
Evie didn’t even realize she was leaning in or that Mal was tilting her head up just the slightest, until their eyes were falling closed and their lips were just about to brush one another’s like the touch of a feather.  
  
_“Song as old as rhyme…”_  
  
“Mal! There you are.”  
  
A king’s voice. The echoing steps of shoes reverberating around the room. A broken spell, and a quick jump away from each other.  
_  
“…Beauty and the Beast.”_  
  
Ben, in a suit of cerulean blue, never the wiser with his epaulettes and embroidered crests.  
  
“I was looking for you,” he smiled at Mal, then at her partner. “Hi, Evie. Mal, the car’s outside, are you ready to go?”  
  
Quick as a flash, so quick Evie wouldn’t have even caught it if she hadn’t already been looking, Mal’s dazed eyes darted to her before settling back on Ben.  
  
“…Yeah…yes. Absolutely,” she tried to shake herself out of… _whatever_  it was she was under, taking Ben’s outstretched hand the way she’d just taken Evie’s minutes ago.  
  
They turned and walked, away from Evie, recovering the distance across the ballroom floor she and Mal had covered in a waltz.  
  
“…Have her back before midnight,” Evie halfheartedly joked, she too attempting to shake herself free.  
  
“Of course,” Ben laughed, looking over his shoulder to give her a wave.  
  
Mal looked over her shoulder too.  
  
But gave Evie nothing but the lost, saddened confusion shared between their eyes.  
  
Then they were gone, the ballroom empty save for Evie and the last lingering swills of song twining in and out of the marble columns. Her steps, the pictures of elegance and refinement only seconds ago, now shuffled boorishly over to her speaker, where she stooped and turned the music off, beating the song to its very,  _very_  last bits of lyric.  
  
“…Off to the cupboard with you now, Evie,” she whispered to herself, her voice suddenly choked as she rose back up with her speaker in hand. “…It’s past your bedtime.”  
  
Lost, saddened, confused eyes stared blankly at the empty archway where a king and his lady had just passed through, where Mal had just walked out and walked away.  
  
Oh, how a sigh carried like a scream in that cavernous room.  
  
“…Goodnight, love.”


End file.
